Though
the proletariat and the Chinese farmers had many
similarities, this generalization however, does not
suffice. Not only is the urban life of a proletariat
worker quite different from those of a farmer, they also
exist in a very different setting. Most of the farmers
owned the plot of land which they worked on. They worked
for themselves, their earnings were relative to their
effort and skill. Aside from taxes, the farmers owned the
harvests, and could do whatever they wanted with it. They
had much more freedom than the industrial workers. The
proletariat had to work long hours everyday, often with
quotas to meet. The proletariat lived in dense cities
where the unemployed could gather and discuss
revolutionary issues; discontents could exchange ideas
with intellectuals easily. The peasant farmers lived in a
low density setting where work was endless, and
intellectuals were scarce.

A
key distinction between peasants and workers are their
relationship to private property. Farmers rely on their
private property for wealth, it is essential to them. The
proletariate rely on their labour for wealth, property is
a luxury to them. They do not need the tools of
production as the peasants do. One criticism of Communism
which seemed so radical and unheard of was the concept of
abolishing private property. Marx was not terribly
concerned about this possible problem because of the
conditions of the average European, especially from
England or Germany. "You are horrified at our
intending to do away with private property. But in your
existing society, private property is already done away
with for nine tenths of the population; its existence for
the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands
of those nine tenths." This reassurance however,
only applied to heavily industrialized nations were the
masses consisted almost entirely of the proletariate
class, who owned little more than what they wore. In
China's case, the nine tenth of the population were
peasant farmers instead. The peasants had assorted
privately owned property from livestock to machinery to
land which not only has economic and utilitarian value,
but sentimental value as well. This was why the peasant
farmers would be reluctant to give up their private
property. It is even more evident here that Marx did not
write The Communist Manifesto with a largely agrarian
nation like China in mind. The peasants supported
Communism because they believed they were going to gain
land (from the wealthy), and not lose it. Under Mao, the
peasants gradually lost the rights to their property.